Learning management: the revolt of the end-user

Universities must decide whether to open up their learning management systems Deakin University is migrating its learning management system from Blackboard to a Canadian system called Desire2Learn, with plans to go live in 2011. To some extent the decision bucks a global trend in which universities have increasingly opted for open system-based learning management systems (LMS) such as Sakai or Moodle. But the challenges Deakin is facing in terms of developing a content creation model and deciding which end-user devices to allow to access the system are universal. According to technology analyst Gartner, four years ago 68 per cent of LMS installed in universities were commercial – such as Desire2Learn and Blackboard, and just 17 per cent were open source based. This year it says 38 per cent of learning management systems are built on open platforms, compared to a much reduced 51 per cent now on commercial platforms. The remaining 11 per cent are home-grown, with universities using tools such as Microsoft’s SharePoint to develop their own learning platform. Evidence is mounting, though, of faculty and students going it alone, forgoing university-sanctioned systems and harnessing social networking tools to create their own platforms for learning. The shift is a clear demonstration that learning management systems are in no way “set and forget” technology. They need to be kept up to date to meet user – particularly student – expectations, and to be able to interface with new end user devices such as tablet computers and smartphones and to integrate with social networking tools. LMS need to be able to support Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis, and to interface with immersive learning simulations. They cannot survive as an online catalogue of courses. Peter Brusco, the director of IT services at Deakin University and who is ultimately responsible for the performance of the new LMS, believes the adoption of Desire2Learn “is going to set Deakin apart in terms of functionality from other universities”. But he acknowledges it’s not simply a case of dumping content from Blackboard into Desire2Learn: instead, there is a need for a more mature approach to content creation and capture that is still being developed. It’s important universities get this right, or they will find that the branding associated with their learning content starts to leak in favour of the individual faculty members, or even students who are increasingly keen to contribute content. While Deakin’s decision on the LMS system has been made, Brusco admits he is still determining how consumer-owned devices, such as tablet computers and smartphones, can be used most effectively. “These devices are already part of the way our students and staff operate and will overtake the use of laptop and desktop computers sooner than most people may believe," he said. "We are running trials of different devices – and still working out how to bring those devices into the fold.” He’s not alone in his belief. A study released in late November by Telsyte predicted more than one million media tablet devices will be sold in Australia in 2011. In the corporate and government sectors there are organisations trying to keep consumer-owned devices from being admitted to networks – for example, InTact, which provides IT services to the ACT government, schools and agencies, is being lobbied to not to admit the devices. But as Brusco and Peter Nikoletatos, chief information officer for Curtin University, understand, you can’t put the lid back on Pandora’s box. Curtin, for example, is offering browser support for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari to allow students and faculty to access the university network regardless of the device. According to Dr Jan-Martin Lowendahl, research director for Gartner’s higher education strategies group, it’s a challenge for university , CIOs the world over. In November, Lowendahl presented at the Gartner Symposium in Sydney and identified LMS as one of the greatest technology challenges facing the sector. “The digital natives are here and they are coming faster than we thought,” Lowendahl said, adding that this required CIOs to adjust their thinking in terms of internal information systems. In particular, they needed to think deeply about the standards they have developed for systems and services design. “Part of this is about vendor management – but importantly also what sorts of standards you need in institutions. For example, if you have a Flash-based online learning system it won’t support the iPad. You can’t use Android to annotate PDFs at the moment,” he said. Getting it right is important, because as Lowendahl explained, if students and faculty don’t like the learning management system the university selects they are increasingly at liberty to access cloud-based solutions and build their own. Left unchecked this will gradually dilute the university brand associated with its LMS. “It’s like the Industrial Revolution – there is a change of power between the big ruling class versus the working class and students and the researchers have the power,” Lowendahl said. He believes the days are numbered for the siloed nature of systems such as Blackboard and Moodle, as he sees more and more educators using free-form blogging to set and receive assignments. Admittedly, both Blackboard (which has bought Elluminate in part to tackle the issue) and Moodle are reworking their approaches, but in the meanwhile if students don’t like their university LMS they can go to a cloud and set up their own e-portfolio that they can use for life. According to Lowendahl, “Most universities can’t do that.” On top of this, tools to support students and faculty members going it alone are proliferating. In October, Moodlerooms released Joule 2.0, which will be available early next year. This provides an environment to allow students and teachers to set up their own casual learning platforms based around the Moodle core. Joule can be accessed through an on-premises licence or as a hosted solution (that is, in the cloud). Again, the control of the university CIO over the LMS is being threatened. Lowendahl advocates a fresh approach: “Australian universities need to look at the process before the product. How do we produce content and try to separate content from how you display it?” Universities also needed to identify the learning platforms they would support – and whether they would offer mobile access. “I just talked to on Australian university and a lot of their content is Flash based – but you can’t use the iPad. The problem is you have to pick winners,” Lowendahl said. Data from research outfit Ovum shows smartphones supporting flash are emerging - Google’s Android 2.2, Blackberry, Nokia’s Symbian and Windows Phone, for example, now all support Flash 10.1. Ovum believes Apple is now under pressure to support Flash on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Lowendahl agrees and points to rumours that apps will be developed to encapsulate Flash, possibly providing workarounds. But rather than wait for vendors to take action, Lowendahl believes savvy university CIOs will benefit from separating content in LMS from the way it is presented. This will also help future-proof LMS, as the content will be easier to package up for display on whatever new devices emerge. To do so, CIOs needed to carefully concentrate on the standards for identifiers, formats and protocols (IFaPs), says Lowendahl. “It’s like the World Wide Web where you have HTML, URL and HTTP – this allows you to dissociate the content from the wrapping. If you have IFaP thinking, you can repackage content much easier – it’s almost a philosophical approach to content creation – but it’s necessary because of devices like the iPad and new tablets.” In the web the Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) tells you how to interpret data, and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) tells you how to communicate data, and the URL tells you where to find it. A similar approach for LMS content would help universities retain control of their content, but also open up access in order to better meet faculty and student expectations.